


DANCE FOR ME, LITTLE THING

by OnlyOneWoman



Series: Neighbours & Flatmates [9]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: A little of John Silvers background story, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ballet, Billy is kind of intruding, Blushing, Child Neglect, Dancing, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Foot Massage, Foster Care, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love, M/M, Mention Of Swedish Movie, Multi, Neighbors, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8238754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyOneWoman/pseuds/OnlyOneWoman
Summary: This is the ninth part of a new piece with A LOT of Black Sails characters in modern time. I have some chapters done already, but I'm really not sure how it will end up. Some characters will be closer to the real Black Sails personalities, while I've taken some liberties with others. We will get to know florists, religious nuts, university teachers and a psychologist living in the same house in Southampton. Some characters will be blood relatives, some will be lovers, a lot of them are neighbours and even though Billy Bones is the main character, there will be a lot of side stories to his.THIS CHAPTER IS WEIRD. It's about ballet, an old Swedish movie, a Billy Bones still not knowing he's in love and very much blushing.





	

This is the music Billy's hearing:  _"_[Skivan", ("The Record"), Johan Söderqvist, from the Swedish movie "Agnes Cecilia"](https://open.spotify.com/track/1Iy0BcSROalpuLNTosS5zG)  
  
  
***  
  
  
The music was low. A single piano melody and he wouldn’t have heard it, wasn’t it for the opened door. John must’ve thought he’d closed it, it was barely a chink. Billy put his hand on the doorknob. He should close it, quietly. Should, wouldn’t. Instead he, for some increadibly stupid reason, went inside as silent as possible. Like an intruder.  
  
The loose jeans, feet rising on fucking _pointe shoes_ , the shirt also loose around his upper body and Billy could do nothing but stare. Of course he knew men danced ballet, but since he’d never been interested in dancing of any sort, he’d not thought about how much strenght it required. And he’d never thought men could get on toe like that.  
  
John seemed lost for all but the music, soft piano tunes and his posture made him look so tall, so strong and confident. When he rose on his toe points again, walking/dancing a long series of steps over the floor, ending with a slow pirouette, Billy swallowed. John’s clothes were ragged, ill-fitting and the room still looked all but cozy and more like a store room for a bed and a chair, but the way he moved was just increadibly beautiful.  
  
Every movement seemed so natural, all the tension had gone and god… those feet. Billy’d never been one for foot fetish, but he just couldn’t take his eyes off the well-used shoes in black satin, forming themselves like a second skin around John’s feet as he swirled over the floor. He wasn’t aware he’d been gaping until the music stopped and John sank down in some twisted foot position and going down on his heels completely, before turning his face at him again. The blue eyes looked all serious at first, then one of those breathtaking smiles occured and John made a silly mockery bow. Billy didn’t know where to look.  
  
”Um, the door was ajar and… Sorry for intruding, but…”  
”Seems I have an audience. You thought ballet was for girls only, huh?”  
  
Billy could only shake his head. Fuck, he was blushing so much he could feel his ears practically glowing. He swallowed.  
  
”That was… _fucking amazing_ , John.”  
”Thank you. I didn’t look like a chick then, huh?”  
  
The teasing comment only made Billy shake his head, as if he’d suddenly swallowed his tongue.  
  
”Does it not hurt?”  
” _Now_ it most certainly does, since I didn’t warm up properly and these shoes are not good enough to use anymore, but I just had to. Haven’t danced for months now, so…”  
”Why did you stopped?”  
  
John shrugged, already beginning to untie the shoes.  
  
”A minor back injury. Nothing that causes me much trouble, but I can’t do the lifts or jumps anymore. It wasn’t that I really had a career in ballet or so, but if you can’t jump or lift, you’re fucked on stage.”  
”Still thought it was amazing.”  
”Good to know I didn’t hurt my feet for my mirror only.”  
  
He smiled and wriggled his toes and before Billy thought about how stupid it would sound, he breathed out:  
  
”You want a foot massage?”  
  
Well, John might not have a ballet career, but Billy had a blushing career for sure, and it seemed to get ”better”. He was just about to take back his silly offer, when John sat down, promptly patting on the floor.  
  
”Yes, please. And don’t say they’re small just because you have giant feet.”  
  
The little smile was challenging and Billy returned it with red earloabs and a sheepish look on his face. He took his bag and jacket off, sat down and began to massage the feet. They weren’t unusually small, and not very pretty. No wonder, Billy thought as he squeezed them, since dancing on your toes must be one hell of a hard work. John leaned back on his palms with blissful expression on his face.  
  
”Fuck, you’re good at this.”  
”Worth hurting your feet then?”  
”Oh yeah. Jesus… you could make a living out of this.”  
”How long did you dance?”  
”About twentythree-twentyfour years. Started when I was around five. Followed one of my si… acquaintances to her dancing classes and I thought it was too boring just sitting around and wait, so I joined in, so to say.”  
”That’s a really long time. How often did you practice?”  
”Once or twice every day.”  
”Are you kidding me?!”  
  
John laughed at Billy’s stunned face expression.  
  
”Ballet is no child’s play, you know. Not if you want to be good at it. Did morning excercises every day, I mean literally every day if I wasn’t ill or injured, and then a couple of hours in the evenings six days a week.”  
”Oh my God! And I thought my swimming classes were intense.”  
”You were a swimmer?”  
”Not really. I swam three or four days a week for a period in my teens. Hated it at first.”  
”Then why did you do it?”  
”Hal forced me. My dad.”  
  
Sligthly rosed eyebrows. It probably sounded weird shifting between Hal and dad like that. It was no secret anyway and Billy decided to explain.  
  
”I was in the system until I was thirteen and came to Hal. Or, I was in the system a time after I came to him too, of course, but he didn’t adopt me until I’d lived with him for a while. The system is…”  
”I know what it is.”  
  
He did, did he?  
  
”Um… anyway, I grew very fast when I was about thirteen and I got nosebleedings and fainted. Hated my body. So I skipped swim classes and my dad got so fucking mad at me when he found out. He signed me up for swim classes three times a week.”  
”That’s… a quite unusal way to deal with shirking.”  
”You don’t say. Was grounded too, but yeah… that’s how I started swimming. Was fucking horrible the first weeks. I puked and cried. And then I got a meltdown in the locker room one day, so they had to call Hal for picking me up. He was furious.”  
”What happened?”  
  
_Did he beat you?_ John was very quiet about his life, his background story could just as well be locked away in a cabin, but Billy had no problem to interpret the lack of reaction to what he’d just said: whatever life John had lived, he was just as familiar with some of the worst things with _the system_ as Billy. In which way was another question, but it was perfectly clear that the ragged, curlyheaded guy with the worn out pointee shoes next to him, knew more than well not to expect too much of the world.  
  
”He scolded at me for a while and then I had a panic attac of some sort. Couldn’t feel my legs and he had to take me to the doc.”  
”Fuck. Was it serious?”  
”Not at all. Just a panic attack. Turned out the swimming made me more than a little stressed out so I didn’t have to go anymore. Hal was really nice to me after that. Picked up swimming some years later so it wasn’t all for nothing.”  
”He sounds like a good guy.”  
”A fucking dork. Best dad ever. I was really lucky.”  
”Yeah, it appears so. You still have contact?”  
”He adopted me.”  
”Really? Fuck, that’s unusual…”  
  
Definately familiar with the worst side of the system: never knowing if you can call anything _yours_. Billy kept kneading the feet and received another blissful smile from the secretive neighbour.  
  
”Never considered another career?”  
”Chiropodist? No thanks.”  
”Pity. You’d make a whole lot of ballet dancers really happy.”  
”Think I prefer silver.”  
  
John Silver. Oh, that came out weird. John’s eyes were warm and a little tired, his eyelids tended to drop every now and then as Billy worked on the sore toes. He blushed.  
  
”I mean… Fuck. That just sounded weird.”  
”It’s hardly your fault I have a ridiculous surname. And technically, you _are_ working with silver now. With a capital s, of course. What do you take for an hour of this bliss? Anything I can possibly pay you in, except for a homecooked dinner, ’cause I really can’t cook. Fuck, _that_ sounded pretty weird too…”  
  
They both laughed and Billy had to make a real effort not to let go of John’s feet and scoop him up to kiss him. _What the fuck, Billy?_ _You don’t even know if he’s into guys and even if he is, it doesn’t mean he has any interest in you. You’ve already fucked one neighbour, cool it down!_ He swallowed.  
  
”You could… do this again.”  
”This?”  
”Dancing… And I’ll give you a foot rub afterwards.”  
  
_Holy shit. Billy Manderly, what do you think you’re doing?!_  
  
”Sorry, I don’t know what I’m…”  
”Deal.”  
  
_What?_  
  
”Huh?”  
”Deal. I’ll dance for you and you’ll give me foot rubs.”  
  
_I’d give it to you anyway, dancing or not, if you like. I’d like to tell you how sexy you are, but somehow I think that’s not what you want anyone, not just me, to say. Still can’t figure you out, but I’m clear about one thing: you’re not used to have anything, literally anything, without giving something in return. Took me a long time to get rid of that kind of thinking. Most of it, anyway._  
  
The feeling that I somehow had to be grateful for people not being complete assholes to me. That one foster parent only hit me in places not visible to others. At least my face is untouched. That another one only deprived me of dinner. I’m having breakfast and it tastes like heaven after going without food since yesterdays lunch. Another one letting me postpone a round with the belt since I’m having a fever. Thank God I’m allowed to have that beating postponed for as long as I’m ill.  
  
”Hey? Billy…”  
”What?”  
”Lost inside your head again?”  
”Oh… Sorry, yeah, I guess I was.”  
  
John didn’t ask any further questions, thank God, but Billy’s hands were shivering around the feet. John Silver’s sore, pretty feet. _Yes, they were pretty._ The dancing was pretty. John was fucking pretty. Billy swallowed.  
  
”The… um… music.”  
”Huh?”  
”The music you danced to. Who made it?”  
”Oh. That’s quite funny, actually. It’s a from a Swedish movie. _Agnes Cecilia._ ”  
”Never heard of it.”  
”I’m not surprised. It’s from 1991. Anyway, long story short: there’s a sequense in that movie, where you see a girl in a long, old fashioned ballet skirt, slowly appearing from a curtain in another girls bedroom. The other girl, Nora, is standing on the doorway, but she can’t enter, ’cause it’s not her time and room… It’s hard to explain… I’m not sure how I came to watch it or even where I was, but that girl, Cecilia, used to live in that room many years earlier and when the memory of her, or spirit, is in that room, dancing, Nora can’t enter. But she sees her, and she sees her dancing in front of a big wardrobe with a mirror to that particular song. Nora doesn’t dance herself, but her brother does. Actually, he’s not her brother, they’re distant relatives and she lives with his parents. It’s not a movie from the beginning, it’s a novel. Have read it like a hundred times…”  
  
Billy was mesmerized. John’s voice was dreamy, his eyes distant, as if he really didn’t speak to anyone and Billy realised this was a very personal memory he shouldn’t intrude with questions. Instead he kept rubbing the feet, increasing the pressure to draw John back to here and now.  
  
”Oh… that’s good. Sorry for rambling about, by the way. I always tend to get a little excited when it comes to ballet.”  
”That’s hardly a bad thing.”  
”Well, no, not bad, but it’s not really the most easy subject to talk about without sounding like a nerd. It’s not as if you asked for my lifestory.”  
  
John gave a little self ironic smile and Billy swallowed. _Yes, I do_. _I want to know all about the dude that somehow makes me blush for nothing and say the most ridiculous things. The guy that saw an old Swedish movie and wanted to dance like the girl in the curtain, even thou it’s nothing girlish about the dance I just saw, nothing what so ever._  
  
”You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone dance like this. I mean, for real.”  
”No? Well, I guess most guys don’t go to ballet unless someone forces them to. Pity.”  
”I don’t get the toe thing. How can you balance on your toes like that?”  
”Years and years of practice and constantly looking after your feet. If any of my former teachers saw me dance in my old pointees like I did today, they’d scream in agony.”  
”Couldn’t you get a new pair?”  
”Why? I don’t dance anymore.”  
”You did today.”  
  
_And I want to see it again. You looked amazing with your loose jeans and shirt, and those shoes._  
  
”If I’m going on pointe again, I’d be stupid. Haven’t practiced in months. I guess I could do it barefoot, of course… But not on pointe. Requires a lot more warm up, especially now.”  
”Like toe rubs?”  
  
John laughed and shook his head.  
  
”You’re not giving up, huh? Look, if I’m going _en pointe_ again, even for a moment, I’d have to get proper shoes and take up the basic twice a day exercises again for at least a months before I can dance for you without hurting my feet.”  
”I can wait.”  
”And in return?”  
”What do you want?”  
”Billy…”  
”Yes?”  
”Has anyone told you how _weird_ you are?”  
”Lot’s of people. Mostly my neighbours and flatmates.”  
  
John’s bright laughter. Billy felt his ears go all red. What exactly was he doing? But John’s smile was warm and friendly.  
  
”Alright, I give up. I’ll go _en pointe_ again, once, one these terms. First of all: no one can know. Not Ben, not anyone.”  
”Of course.”  
”Second. You can’t nag, or watch me practise. It’ll take the time it takes.”  
”Got it. Is there a number three?”  
”Yes. If you want to see me dance, you have to come with me to see a proper performance.”  
”Oh. You mean, like a real show? The skirts and all?”  
”Uh-huh.”  
”Deal. And, since I know how much you hate to cook, you can have dinner with us every day until you’re done practising.”  
”Fuck…”  
”What?”  
  
John laughed again.  
  
”There really is no way out of this for me, right?”  
”You could say no.”  
”Yeah, but you make it _hard_. You’re offering a caretaker homecooked dinner on daily basis and company to the ballet, dude. Couldn’t say no to that even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”  
”So it’s a deal then?”  
” _Yes_ , you idiot! It’s a deal.”  
”Excellent. What do you want for dinner?”  
  
  
TBC


End file.
